The Science of Interconnectedness
by Simeon Chiron Nartoomid

I saw a television show on the Discovery Science Channel (02/15/09) that was called "Connected: the Power of Six Degrees." This was a documentary on the new and emerging science of networks.

The science of networks studies the relationships between various components of any system which can be considered a network. This includes such vastly diverse things as the neurons in the human brain, a national power grid system, the protein complexes inside of a human cell, the internet, all the people in the world, communities of insects and so forth.

This is a truly exciting science and this new area of exploration could rightly be called the science of interconnectedness or unity. This new field of science was somewhat spawned by what is known as the "power of six degrees." Simply put, this theory says that we are never more than six degrees, steps or people from anyone else in the world. It was made popular some years back by an individual who took the theory and applied it online to all known movie stars and thus discovered that actor Kevin Bacon seemed to be in the center of the movie star connection universe.

This theory was more recently scientifically tested and proven to hold up fairly well. The experiment involved a number of persons who were designated as "targets" and a number of other people who were designated as "senders". The senders had to see if they could get a small package delivered to the target (whom they did not know) by sending it to someone they did know whom they thought would be able to get it closer to the target. The next person would be instructed to do the same and so forth. The senders always have to send to someone they personally know. The majority of the packages that were successfully delivered to their targets averaged six degrees or steps of exchange (or less) before they arrived at the target's doorstep!

This is only the beginning, however. A number of scientists have been sharing their data and taking this fledgling science into new areas of application. It is now being scientifically demonstrated that everything -- all systems -- in nature utilize the same pervasive laws of organization. These laws of organization are always seeking to ensure the survival and success of whatever is in the network. So the chorus of crickets, or the flashing synchronicity of a ten thousand fireflies, the movement of people from one website to another, the movement of traffic through a city, the movement of signals through our brain's neural circuitry and the cooperative activity of proteins in our cells are all inter-related through the underlying organizational principles that they use.

One very interesting aspect of networks that has been discovered is that all networks have"hubs" where a greater concentration of connections exist. On the internet these would be called "portals." In the study that was done on the network of all known movie stars the hubs were the more popular stars who had more contacts in the movie star world.

The net result of this research seems to indicate that these hubs are very important to the health of the network. They offer other members of the network the capability of connecting to significantly more additional members than they could on their own. This points to a vulnerability in the network, if something happens to the hub(s) then the network becomes fragmented with isolated pockets rather than functioning as a whole organism.

This basic scientific principle has already been employed to identify and destroy the hubs in terrorist networks and reportedly has worked very well. An even more constructive use of this technology is emerging in the medical field. They have mapped all known diseases and the DNA codons that are involved in each disease for those diseases for which the associated codons are currently known. This has resulted in revealing a massive network of interconnectedness between many different diseases. This system takes advantage of the DNA codons as the hubs in the network.

The advantages to being able to see the network relationships between various diseases and the DNA codons involved opens a huge door to a number of things. One of these is to greatly facilitate the process of locating the remaining codons involved in many diseases which have not yet been fully mapped. I believe that this will also lead in time to a new field of medicine wherein disease will be treated as a whole organism involving many manifestations of a few underlying causes. If you then treat the underlying causes an entire array of diseases can be treated or eliminated.

Even more importantly to me are the implications this new science has for ushering us into a new era of unity consciousness and cooperative effort on our planet. It is already happening because the scientists who were the early researchers in this new breakthrough science saw immediately that sharing their data with each other enhanced all of their efforts and ensured the success of their new field of endeavor. These same scientists are now working to encourage scientists in other "seemingly unrelated" disciplines of science to begin sharing their data with each other to enhance the success of all scientific endeavor and to expand our understanding of how all disciplines of science inter-relate to each other.

Wow, could it be that simple, a new science that now clearly demonstrates to everyone that if we do not share our resources we all suffer? Its starting to sound downright spiritual and I must say I am very optimistic for planet Earth!

Could it even be that our attempts to locate extraterrestrial life in the universe other than ourselves could be taken to a new level of understanding by recognizing that regardless of where an advanced race of beings would exist in the universe they would need to use various hubs to inter-communicate and exchange information, resources and even travel? What would these universal hubs be? Galactic centers, quasars, planets like Earth, our human hearts and brains?

Here are some links you can check out on the topic of this new science:

YouTube Video (a short excerpt from the TV documentary I saw)

Linked: The New Science of Networks by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi (one of the original and primary researchers)

The Science Channel Daily/Weekly Schedule (see when this show can be viewed, its called "Connected: the Power of Six Degrees")

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